Philmont

We went and attended the LDS Leadership Training at Philmont Scout Camp in Cimarron, New Mexico. The cool thing is that my folks were also there, Jeff and Sandy's family, and Mike and Connie's family.
We also saw Charles Dahlquist - the Young Men's General President, Vicki Matsumori - 2nd Counselor in the General Primary Presidency and Linda Christensen - General Primary Board member. So of course we got pictures with them.

Outside our tent

Family photo after Church

3 Generations of Scouters

Kerr and her cousins Madison and Rachel

Family by the famous Philmont covered wagon


Kids in their costumes before the Family Parade
Mitchell was a forest Ranger (like Robin Hood, Aragorn, Faramir), Kerr was a Butterfly, and Kenzie was "I Dream of Jeannie", wait, I mean, Aphrodite, goddess of Love and Beauty.

Kenzie dancing with this guy at the Western Dance. His name was Sasquatch. Weird, huh?

We did a way-early morning hike up Lover's Leap. From there we could see the fabled [Buck]Tooth of Time, or [Snaggle]Tooth of Time if you prefer. Mike has always wanted to hike it to earn a patch but has never been able. It was closed so maybe next time, Miko!


Here are the Scouters with Pres Dahlquist


Kenzie and Sis Matsumori


Mitchell and Sisters Matsumori and Christensen


Mitchell and Pres Dahlquist


Kerrigan and Sisters Matsumori and Christensen


Big family photo by the Philmont wagon


Mitchell was able to participate in a camp flag-raising ceremony one morning. It was a good experience for him.


This was cool. This is the only fossilized footprint from a T-rex in North America.


Dad bought all the adults these hand-crafted bolo ties


Sonya and me with Bill Burch who carved our bolo ties


Here are the Woodbadgers
...Back to Gilwell, happy land, I'm going to punch my brother if I can...

Good Memories

It was a great time. But hands-down, the funniest moment was, next to watching Mike brown-nose Chuck, I mean, Pres Dahlquist, after the closing ceremonies to get a hug, [surprise, surprise] while gathered around the camp-lantern late one night watching Mike lean waaay in to tell the Ross Ashcroft grandpa knife-murderer ghost story to Sonya after getting mad at me and Jeff for spoiling the mood and Jeff sneaking around and grabbing his rib with the Lake Windemere Talon! I think he roused the entire camp with his yell! Priceless!

Garden of the Gods

On the way home from Philmont, we stopped in Colorado Springs to climb around

Rock Wall

Climbing at Longmont Rec Center:
Mitchell

Sonya

Me

Kerr

Me doing a flip off the diving board

RockBand

OK, who are we kidding? The best part of the trip, having Uncle Mike come and get RockBand as a homewarming gift for us! Everyone needs an Uncle Mike; even if he thinks your powdered milk tastes funny and the tomatoes don't smell fresh enough.

Presidential Election, Vol. 1

Here is a good article by George Stephanopoulos called "How to be a better voter" from PARADE magazine. I like his point about not ruling out "flip-floppers".

And I like this Opinion by Glenn Beck called Obama No, McCain Maybe on CNN. I like his comment that our country isn't a Reality Show where we vote for whoever is left after all the lying and backstabbing. And I like his delineation between a conservative and a republican.

Father's Day

This is the You're the Greatest Father candy bar note that they kids made for me. They've been bugging me to share and eat it ever since.


The kids made a Clue Hunt for me. As I solved the first hint, it gave the location in the house of the next clue. We ran all over finding where they had hid these. They did a great job, making sure each clue rhymed. We were hamming it up and having fun.


The last clue took us into the basement for this:

I was shocked! I shouldn't have been shocked that I couldn't kick them off the game to come play Ticket to Ride Europe because it was my day.
It was a great Father's Day. They keep this side pretty well-hidden, and maybe it was just because they wanted to play Guitar Hero, but they are great kids.

Running with the Devil

I ran in the local 10k race on Saturday, the 23rd Longmont Sunrise Stampede. It was cool because I ran 10 years ago in 1998 in the 13th Stampede. Here are the posted results. My time was 54:02, a personal best. My splits, as best as I recall them, were 9:00, 9:05, 9:05, 8:30, 8:30, 8. I figure my average pace was 8:40.

The stats:
190th out of 464 finishers
135th out of 249 men (winning time for men: 31:12)
20th out of 39 in my age group 35 - 39yr old men (winning time for this division 38:51)

It was funny because I suddenly decided to run around Wednesday. The early-registration closed Friday at 5pm. The race-day registration was like $10 more. I hustled down to 1 location (the hospital) and they didn't know where registrations were happening.
So I raced across town to another location at 5:10pm where another guy was registering for the 2-mile with the rebellious-apathetic-teenage-worker behind the counter. I was able to start registering and this old man was standing there waiting for me. He was there to pick up the registration forms and money to "close" the early-registration. I had just barely made it. In reading about the race, I saw that he was one of the original co-founders that started the Sunrise Stampede in 1985 with the other co-founder, our current mayor Roger Lange. Pretty neat coincidence.
I bumped into the guy the next day at the race and wanting to show my gratitude I thanked him for starting the race and putting it on each year. He was probably like, you're the pipsqueak that caused me to be late to my dinner appointment last night! It is so much better (I think) than its bloated inter-county cousin, the Bolder Boulder. The BB boasted around 50,000 runners this year. The Stampede had 465 finishers. Yes, it's a much smaller scale. You have drivers driving alongside some of the roads. But it's nice because you're not jostling the entire time with groups in a straight line across the road.

Top-of-Utah Marathon

While I'm blogging about running, the spouse and I ran our first marathon several years ago. The 1999 Top-of-Utah marathon in Logan, Utah. She creamed me with a time of 5:03:31.08. The female results are here. My time was 5:26:31.08. The male results are here.

Memorial Day

It was memorable.

Check this out. Cor blimey!
My neighbor is retired Air Force married to a British gal. I've never seen the Union Jack being flown on Memorial Day. But I thought, why not? We honor soldiers that died in wars. And the bloody Limey's lost a lot alongside us and also are practically brothers. Well, cousins. Well, 5th-cousins twice-removed. Well, you get the point.

Momma's Birthday

My mother-in-law came to visit with my sister-in-law and her husband and for her b-day.
Here's the birthday girl with her ubiquitous Diet Coke!

Check out this awesome cake that Sonya and Sommer designed. It's a domino, which is my mother-in-law's favorite game du jour. Sonya flipped around the cake and said, hey, my age in reverse! Sweet! The only time this will ever happen. (Kind of like when my younger bro was impressed when the date and time were: 02:03:04 a.m. 05/06/07!)


Playing "Train" with the dominoes. I think Sonya counted that they played 15 games while here, including Train, Puerto Rico, Guesstures (always a party favorite!), Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride Europe.

American Idol

You have to love Randy-dawg's medal (I believe that is a gang-sign being flashed), Paula, and Simon's scowl and chest-hair!
The kids (and Mom) are sad that American Idol is over, and that David Archuleta lost to the better singer. There is this conspiracy theory circulating how Fox helped David Cook win by having the judges come down hard on his seemingly lackluster performance. So the Cookites rise up and vote en masse while the Archuletites are lulled into carnal insecurity because of the praises heaped upon his adolescent head. What can you say when Cook won?! I can't argue with logic like that. I would have to say in this case that correlation definitely implies causation. :-)

Scooby

This is my hoochie-mama!

Making a good first-Impressionism

While doodling and learning to draw, Kenz has invented what we call Fashion Gals. They have these huge eyes. She used them in an Art class this past year and inserted them into her portrayals of famous art.

Seurat's "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" -- the classic example of pointillism. The school wanted to purchase this one from her but we kind of like it.

Jan Vermeer van Delft's "Girl with the Pearl Earring"

She made a quilt out of several drawings of her Fashion Gals:

Hygiene Elementary Roadrunner Club's 1-Mile Fun-Run

The organizers of this event have got to be from Arizona or Vegas as I ain't never seen me a roadrunner here in the high country! This was the 1st Annual event in the school district (probably provided they can get teacher sponsors next year) racing against other K-5 schools in the district. I love to run so we signed the kids up. Mitch and Kenz ran 1 morning a week for 6-weeks with the club. Kerr and I were still finishing up the Soccer season.

Our intrepid warriors runners muster together in the pre-dawn mist (well, 9:00a.m. and it was overcast with 5% chance of rain!) to bolster their spirits and exchange spirited encouragement as they prepare for battle the race. Grim visages of war.

• Is this day their last?
  
• Will they ever enjoy creature comforts again?
  
• Will they shirk or shun the fight or stand fast and prove their mettle?
  
• Is Mississippi spelled with 4-s's or 2-s's as in Misisippi?
  

But alas, such distractions must be disregarded .... battle and the blood of men (and little girls' skinned knees) beckon.

Individual "Before" shots with each of the endurance-runners. A precaution born from tragic experience just in case runners from other schools attempt any "funny business" during the race, we'll know what they looked like before the race. I'm pleased to report that no hijinks nor tomfoolery were observed. All smiles, cheery dispositions and colorful helms; blissfully unaware of the brutal savagery exposed by Man in dire straits that awaits.

Mitchell leads the pack running with their coach. Fortunately Grandpa Sugar discovered last year that although this guy says he doesn't like exercise, get him talking about Star Wars or the subtle yet distinctive differences between the Archaeopteryx and the Quetzalcoatlus and he'll run to Kenya and back before he realizes where he's gone. True heart of a warrior -- all muscle and sinew, not much brain.

In a courageous display of inhuman strength and blinding speed, Kerr bursts ahead of the pack to complete the brutal and perilous race.

Three of our brave quasi-marathoners approach the finish line after their grueling 5,280 metres [sic]. The smallish warrior gasps for air at the deadly and almost lethal oxygen-deprived elevation of 5,280-feet above-sea-level. Too late, she grasps the savage irony and apprehends the epithet of this battlefield, "Mile High City." (Ed note: Or it might be a yawn; I'm not sure.)

The exhausted yet victorious band revels in their Herculean-feat and quietly reposes in a post-race celebration.
(The KrispyKreme doughnuts probably shouldn't be next to the sprigs of broccoli, right? Ah, the cruelty that is Man.)

One of the best days of my life:

• Running a race with my kids -- Priceless